Conway seeks advantage from stomping

Kentucky Democrat Jack Conway is seeking to capitalize on the violent episode involving Rand Paul supporters outside a Senate debate earlier this week, saying the Republican candidate’s response to the incident shows his lack of sensitivity to voters.

After issuing a statement calling on Paul to apologize to the victim, Conway’s campaign assembled a conference call with reporters to attack the Republican for a “tepid” and “evolved” response, saying he now needs to return $1,900 in campaign contributions from the man accused of stomping on a woman outside the debate, and release all the names of the other men involved in the skirmish.

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John Collins, a spokesman for Conway’s campaign, said Paul needs to answer questions like, “When is it ever OK for two men to wrestle a young woman to the ground, even without the stomping?

“I think the Paul campaign has to answer for the actions of a whole series of its supporters,” Collins said.

Michael Grossman, a 60-year-old attorney from Lexington, said he was standing outside the forum when a Paul supporter tried unsuccessfully to pull him down and cursed at him aggressively.

“At the top of his lungs, he was cursing me, calling me a communist, a socialist, said we ought to be back in California or New York and be with the rest of the scum,” Grossman, a Conway backer, said of his altercation.

Grossman did not report his skirmish to the police.

A Paul campaign official called Conway’s latest tactic “desperate.”

Conway is in serious need to gain significant ground ahead of Tuesday’s election, with Paul emerging as the clear favorite, according to several polls. With the incident before Monday’s debate going viral on cable news and the Internet, Conway is clearly seizing the episode to reap its political benefits.

Television cameras captured the 23-year-old MoveOn.org activist, Lauren Valle, being wrestled to the ground after Paul supporters removed a blonde wig she had been wearing. A man — later identified as Tim Profitt — was seen stepping on the woman’s neck and shoulder. Profitt has apologized for the incident, but was given a criminal summons Tuesday to appear in court.

Hours after the episode, Paul’s campaign released a statement calling the episode “incredibly unfortunate” and that “violence of any kind has no place in our civil discourse.”

The next day, Conway issued a much stronger statement, making it clear that it was a Paul supporter who stomped on the woman’s head and that “physical violence by a man against a woman must never be tolerated.”

After Paul discussed the matter on Fox News, he put out a stronger statement, saying he “condemns the actions” of Profitt and that the campaign was disassociating itself with him.

Of course, it’s far from clear all that occurred between some 300 supporters of both camps, and there have been reports of another violent episode apparently initiated by a Conway supporter as well.

"The Paul campaign condemned the incident far before Conway's camp ever addressed it and decisively severed all ties with the supporter in question,” said Jesse Benton, a campaign manager for Paul. “To suggest otherwise is nothing but a desperate attempt to distract voters from the issues facing Kentucky."